


Do Not Question Night Vale

by orphan_account



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M, Mild Gore, Night Vale, Swearing, idk - Freeform, just an idea i had, pop-punk Cecil
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-11
Updated: 2013-11-30
Packaged: 2017-12-29 02:11:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/999645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Do Not Question Night Vale. Cecil hears this often in his head, but he of course, does not question it.<br/>Nor does he question the murky, fragile memories of his past, which he believes was spent in Night Vale, or the burning sensation of every swirling tattoo on his body when he begins to say too much, or the feeling that he's known Carlos, wonderful Carlos from somewhere before.<br/>He questions none of this, because there is one rule, one rule that he is deathly afraid of for a reason he does not understand, a rule that echoes in his head if he comes to close to asking questions- do NOT question Night Vale.<br/>Or you will regret it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Before

**Author's Note:**

> I've always had a headcannon that Cecil's a pop-punk guy. Not sure why, but it seems cool to me. The lyrics at the beginning are from a song called 'Logan Circle' by The Wonder Years. I don't own any of this stuff. :)  
> I know that Night Vale is current, not futuristic, but I decided to keep the dates, not the years for the sake of style. Enjoy.  
> (Yorkville is my hometown; Cecil lives in my sub-division, which makes for fun longboarding, and there is a weird, random elementary school.)  
> I'll probably update once a week with a new chapter; the next one's called 'Again'.

**9-18-2013**

**Yorkville, IL**

    Cecil shivered, the rubber cap of his left shoe scraping against the gravelly blacktop of an abandoned street. Street lamps burned eerie orange every fifteen feet and he felt like ice, even underneath the bright beams. He wrapped his jacket tighter around him, a size small, but loose on the seventeen year old. He’d grow into it eventually he was sure.

    His wavy blonde hair was swept backwards and held in place by a set of red resin-cast headphones that blared music incessantly into his ears, so loud that if it were to be played without the headphones, it would've woken the entire subdivision at- he checked his iPod for the time- 1:52 in the morning.

    The longboard under his left shoe was quite frankly beat to shit- tape peeling, ply-wood chipped and splintered, well-loved, old, and in every way, worn to bits. It rattled along the road in a solitary sort of way, echoing off the sides of two story, four bedroom houses, quaint and respected, quartered off in neat rows.

   

_I'm afraid that we're wasting away_

_'cause we're all sleeping in circles_

_or talking shit in diners_

_and I've been better but I'm feeling ok_

_I'm not even sad anymore_

_I'm just so tired most nights_

Cecil was a bit eccentric, not that his parents cared- they were generally good people, making sure their son understood life to the fullest- but they didn’t sing him to sleep when he was a baby, they let the sitter watch him while they were out- or rather, let the sitter leave him in the crib in his parent’s room and tell her boyfriend the coast was clear.

    Cecil of course, didn’t understand how he could remember this, but by the time he was eight his sitter was twenty and liked to think she could screw around with black magic. Therefore, when she wasn’t preoccupied with her fifth consecutive boyfriend, she was pointing at him screaming about his ‘fucking third eye’ and running out of the house. Glancing into the medicine cabinet's mirrored door, he saw only as many eyes as everyone else had, and his worries were laid to rest

    He’d never seen her again, and he decided he might as well not explain to his parents that he needed a new babysitter. If he got hungry, he knew how to work the microwave. Bored? He knew how to work the stereo. 

  

    So yes, he was eccentric, but he never spoke of anything he mysteriously knew about again, worked his way through the first three years of high-school marginally ignored by the majority of the attendants and with a year-book photograph of the running back who was a two years older than him in his pocket, the running back he could admit he was wildly attracted to, the same one deemed ‘most likely to succeed’ and ‘cool genius’ upon his senior year.

    He still had that picture, the one from last year- a muscled guy of eighteen with bleach-white teeth to match his bleach-white lab coat, much in contrast to his caramel-coloured skin and long, tight curls of inky hair pushed back off his face.

    Cecil had talked to him all of once in the first half-year of attending the school, but he was quite taken with him.

    Turns out, he was right to be.

     Because one boring January, submersed in the music blaring from his headphones in the library, two well-worked brown hands had lifted them from his ears and asked him ‘what are you listening to all the time anyways?’ He had felt stunned, swept his waving white-gold hair off of his face and into his hat and smiled. ‘The story so far, currently. What do you enjoy listening to, Carlos?’ he had grinned and said ‘nothing good.’ And Cecil fell in love instantly.

    Carlos was gone now, off to University of Arizona, college of science. Cecil hoped he was enjoying it. It was easy not to be too broken up about it, when Carlos messaged him every week, polite conversations translating to how much he missed the empty halls where Cecil threw him up against the lockers occasionally.  

 

    He was slowing his board to a slow, dragging pace, glancing with fondness at the school portrait, when the street lamp flickered off above him and he lost sight of it entirely.

    “Fuck.” He mumbled noncommittally, slipping the clip back into his pocket and pushing off the asphalt for leverage. By the time he had reached the next light he was keeping a considerable pace, but then the second one behind him went off with a definitive clang that he could here past his music.

    Confused, a worm of primal unease in the pit of his stomach, he slid his over-the-ear headphones to his neck and his arms fell to his sides as each light on the street went dead, slowly leading up to the one he was at now.

    One…

    Two…

    Three.

    He slammed his foot against the board and flipped it into his callused hand, and before he understood what he was doing he was running, feet thundering on the empty, echoing street. His breath was suddenly ragged and the lights were shutting off the second his foot hit the space underneath them, as though the darkness was chasing him, right at his heels.

    He felt panic and bile in his chest, long, spindly legs pumping as fast as the blood in his veins, and suddenly everything went more slowly, and he was calm, near the bricks of the elementary school at the end of the street, strangely worked into the small corner of Suburbia he called home.

    He shut his eyes as the brick collided with his left fist, and when he opened them, he could _truly_ see.

  

     Everything was now going too fast, a mass of jagged rotten teeth in a caked and gruesome mouth, and swirling, glossy black tentacles that looked liquid smooth and razor sharp at the same time.

    He gave a shout of shock somewhere between a cry and a swear and rammed his longboard into the creature’s hideous, decaying mouth and it splintered within the second, ground to wood chips, a tentacle shooting forwards only to embed itself into the bricks inches away from Cecil’s head. Eyes wide from shock, he slid underneath it, skittering over the ground and diving away from the creature, bolting ten feet before another was in front of him in the pitch-dark night, rearing, and he saw a flash of cataracts in the blackness.

    He spun around, away from the nightmarish teeth and eyes and leathery flesh, halting as a third monster appeared behind him, tentacles curling around his wrists so tightly he could feel them cutting like chicken wire. A stray kick only resulted in more tentacles encircling his leg, slowly smaller ones curling around every finger on his hands, giant ones spinning round and round his midsection like boa constrictors, around his eyes, his upper arms, his mouth, his neck.

    He did what anyone would do; he screamed.

…

    Carlos’s hands were steady on an assortment of beakers and test tubes with a mysterious compound brewing in them when the lights shut off in his abandoned classroom.

    “Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa!” he muttered, setting his instruments down as carefully as possible, utterly blinded.

    It made no sense. Upon arriving to his second chem class and recognizing that he was well versed in all of the (intermediate at least) material, his professor has seemed to example growing respect and fondness for his pupil, even allowing him to work the nights in the classroom, off the record do that the only person who knew he was there at all was the graveyard shift custodian who had agreed to keep the lights and other appliances running for the mad scientist within.

    So why on earth would the lights suddenly shut off?

    Deep in thought and worry for his compound, he did not expect the marimba from his lab coat pocket and jumped, alarmed by his own ringtone.

    “Hello?” he inquired uneasily. A rasping breath sounded in his ear.

    “This is… station… management.” Cecil’s number shown on the phone’s screen, but the voice that rumbled and growled inhumanly into the receiver was _not_ Cecil’s.

    “I’m sorry? Cecil- is Cecil there?” He heard a ragged shout in the background of the call but it was quickly silenced. He felt terror bloom in his chest like the strike of a match.

    “Who is this? Who the hell is this? What’s happened to Cecil?!” he called, panicked into the phone.

    “He has been… selected.” It thundered, clicking like the _predator_ under the reply.

    “I swear to god, I will find out what’s happen-.” He stopped as a metallic shriek erupted at the end of the line, a burst of energy and growling filling the classroom with noise- and that was just on this end.

    He heard the phone clatter to the ground and a rush of wind- then all was silent. He held his breath. He felt sick.

    “Hello? Cecil?” He demanded shakily into the microphone. A scrape. The phone being lifted from the ground.

    “Who is this?” A new voice commanded. One of an old woman, old but strong.

    “C-Carlos. I’m Cecil’s- friend. What’s happened?” He called. He heard a sharp breath.

    “They’ll be coming for you next then, Carlos. I want you to listen closely. Lock the door, close any windows and bar them. Don’t let anyone in. That’ll hold them off, do you understand?” Carlos felt anxiety in waves, fists clenching until white around the phone.

    “Who-.” He began to sputter, but the woman’s voice shut him up.

    “They tell me you’re a scientist. You have a recorder, don’t you? A digital log?” Carlos became aware for the first time in several minutes of the digital recorder in his right pocket.

    “Y-yes.”

    “Listen, you’ll want to record this- Cecil taken. He is in Night Vale. Depart to Night Vale on June fifteenth, two thousand and twenty. Just start driving, and you will arrive there. Understood?” he gave a shuttering laugh, in hysterics by now.

    “I will!” he replied hurriedly.

    “Who are you?” he pleaded into the receiver.

    “The angel on your shoulder.” The voice responded. The line went dead.

    After a few, short, devastated gasps, he drew his recorder from his pocket, slamming a desk against the set of windows and locking the door.

    “The date is September eighteenth, two thousand and thirteen.” He murmured. Something slammed against the window outside. He was three stories up. He gasped, skittering backwards and knocking over a beaker of thankfully harmless liquid.

    “Cecil- Cecil is taken. He is in Night Vale. Depart-.” Another burst against the storm glass that made the room give a displeased shutter.

    “Depart to Night Vale on June fifteenth, two thousand and twenty. Just start driving, and you will arrive there.” The recording ended with a jab of his thumb and he had just enough time to drop it into his pocket before the glass shattered inwards and hundreds of dark shapes toppled in, silhouetted momentarily against the moon as a mass of inky tendrils.

    He blacked out.  

    **6-15-2020**

“In other news,” Cecil drawled languidly into the microphone,

    “A new man came into town today. Who is he? What does he want from us? Why his perfect and beautiful haircut? Why his perfect and beautiful coat? He says he is a scientist. Well, we have all been scientists and one point or another in our lives. But why now? Why here?” Cecil felt a strange clang in his chest, a burning along his arms. Glancing down he saw hundreds of spiraling tattoos along every part of his body, humming manically in shades of ink and pink scars and vivid purple. He cleared his throat, and with a nervous glance at station management's ominous door, he continued, wondering why he felt as though he had forgotten something- something important, and one phrase echoes in his ears

_Do **not** question Night Vale._

        


	2. Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this took a bit longer than expected. :) It might suck- just a fair warning- but I am always looking for your opinions. Enjoy, readers. Comments are cool.
> 
> update; I HAVE NOT GIVEN UP ON THIS FIC!!!
> 
> update; tonight's the night, yo. updatin' time.
> 
> update; I LIED MWAHAHAHAHA... soon, friend. soon.

    Cecil ran his spidery fingers through his hair, a blondish-white mass on his head, and exhaled slowly through his mouth. He had an ache in his chest as through an object the size of a golf ball had lodged itself there within the last several minutes. He checked the watched on his bony wrist; it read 8:37. Carlos had told him he would swing by Cecil's apartment around 8:45, once he'd finished regulating the temperature of- Cecil sighed. He didn't remember. Some sort of long speech about Night Vale's scientific irregularities and one of his numerous experiments.

    Cecil certainly wasn’t stupid, but an attempt to listen to such a complex statement when it was said by someone so unimaginably perfect was borderline impossible.

    He checked the bathroom mirror presently tugged at the tail of his hair, readjusting his purple suspenders over his crisp white shirt and fiddling with the buttons on the cuffs. Halting as he brushed positively nonexistent dust from his front, fingers still on material, he wondered why he chose to wear it at all. Then he shook his head; he looked the part, he looked like he sounded; smooth, professional; why strive for anything different?

    He cleared his throat anxiously and walked into his living room, a simple affair of black couches, a fashionable desk with a black top and steel limbs, and a levitating orb of light in the corner that hummed slightly. He wasn’t sure when that had gotten there, but it was nice to look at, so he never made any action to get rid of it, not even last week when it had grabbed up one of the pillows and tossed it into the kitchen sink.

    After all, it was simply an orb; stranger things had happened.

    There was, in addition to the previously mentioned furnishings, a coat hook near the door that lead to the stairs. He snatched a grey blazer from one of the top hooks and slid it up over his shoulders, leaving it unbuttoned, and picked up a paper airplane from the ground near the door, noting that whoever had sent it in must’ve had a very precise hand at flying, considering it had flown through the crack between it and the frame.

    _Hello, Cecil._

_Your rent has been pushed back a day due to an error with a giant squid._

_Don’t use the laundry room; it’s been quarantined until Monday._

_Cheers, your landlady._

Nothing too interesting, although in the back of Cecil’s curious mind, he couldn’t help but wonder if the giant squid incident had something to do with the isolated laundry room. He shook his blond hair worriedly. Questions like that got the sheriff’s secret police interested, and for reasons no one quite understood.

    There was a sharp blare from outside, the loud, persistent sound of a car horn, but knowing whose car it belonged to made it sound polite instead of alarming. Carlos was always early.

    The door to the apartment closed shut with a click, the edge of Cecil’s blazer nearly catching in the frame, and the light hummed emphatically.

    The light-orb watched, or with the absence of eyes, merely observed the space he’d left fondly. It then proceeded to play with the pillows.

…

    “Hello, Carlos.” He said in an easy, jovial tone, sliding into the passenger seat with hurried grace and reaching a long arm outwards to shut the door. He had pushed up his blazer’s and shirt’s sleeves to his elbows, belaying the swirling tattoos that coated every last inch of his flesh, like a riot of purple and black on his skin that was pale like a canvas.

    He noticed Carlos staring at them with wide eyes and a slightly nauseated-yet-fascinated expression, and smiled lightly.

    “Like them?” he asked genuinely. Carlos gave a [LO1] start and instantly his hands jumped to the key and turned it in the ignition.

    “Uh, yeah. They’re- really cool- and uh, moving.” One side of Cecil’s mouth came up in a lopsided, disheveled grin.

    “Thank-you. They showed up when I was a kid.” He tugged on one side of his collar subconsciously, where lurking underneath, was a throbbing, swirling tattoo the size of a lemon wedge in the shape of an eye.

    Carlos drummed nervously on the steering wheel and he cleared his throat.

    “Your parents didn’t find that… strange? Unusual?” he asked, attempting to sound noncommittal. Cecil frowned deeply and tugged at his lower lip with his teeth.

    And somewhere, subliminally in the dense forest of Cecil’s mind, he felt a tremor. Of fear and defiance, and everything Night Vale was lacking of, with its serene, apathetic existence. Somewhere, in the most subliminal way, he felt curiosity and pride.

    Then, burning and fear.

    _Do **not** question Night Vale_

    “I-I don’t think so. I believe they didn’t care an ounce for the peculiarity of _any_ circumstance…” He blinked and remained silent.

    That closed that matter- Carlos did however, scribble in to a small moleskin notebook at the next red light.

     He didn’t talk until the light flashed purple, to which Cecil politely suggested they’d best go somewhere around seventeen mph above the speed limit for the next thirty seconds. He did as was told.

    Carlos understood that he shouldn’t ask why. Cecil would look at him with that look; thin strands of thick hair sliding down over his eyes as his brow furrowed in confusion, giving him the distinct expression of an injured puppy.

    ‘Because…’ he would touch his temple surreally. ‘I’m not sure. I just think we should.’

    Carlos wouldn’t ask him then. He wouldn’t… question him.

 

    “So where are we going again?” Cecil asked languidly. Carlos shrugged.

    “I had suggested that we take a look at the library-.”

    “It’s nonexistent today.” He reminded him not unkindly.

    Carlos covered his initial lack of understanding with a grin.

    “Oh! Right. Yeah. I forgot that was today.” He looked around him at the grungy road and all he saw was a rundown town, clear sky, and a radio tower in the distance, the only one for miles.

    “Cecil, how long have you been here?” The look of shock that hit his date was nearly comical, save the fact that his eyes shone with panic, a cornered animal.

    “I’m… not sure. This is the only place I’ve ever been. This is… my home, I guess.” He said. Carlos wasn’t sure he’d ever heard a cliché sound more original, more unique, and with fine undertones of a realist’s philosophical angst.  

    “Do you want to go on a road trip?” he prodded gently. Cecil stared ahead, looking concerned.

    “Where?” he asked finally in a low tone.

    “I’m not sure. But…. If this is the only place you’ve ever seen. Cecil, have you ever seen it snow?”  He blinked.

    “Of course I have.” He said immediately. Then a knot grew in his forehead again.

    “No. No, I haven’t actually.” He looked sad. Carlos hated to think that he had caused it. But he wanted to understand _. Start driving_. _Cecil is taken_.

    So this was Cecil. A human being as Carlos was often assured, if not a peculiar one, who spent his days drifting in and out of eloquent speech, and ended up dazed and confused almost as often as Carlos did.

    But why did this particular person feel so differently than everyone else in Night Vale. Their calm haze of numb thought never punctured, like they were constantly deprived of any vivacious thought that was theirs in the first place.

     “I’d want to though…”Cecil said after a long stretch of quiet, a silence penetrated only by the muffled sound of tires on Carlos’s black Nissan leaf on the well paved road. His head shot up from his thought.

    “Go someplace with you sometime. Could be… fun.” He shrugged, and after a moment of analysis, a smile seeped onto Carlos’s face.

    “I’ll think of where and get back to you.” He replied jovially, and his smile was so radiant that Cecil could forget, for a moment, the burning of his arms, and focus his mind on Carlos alone, because something about that smooth, tanned pallor in contrast to bright teeth and bleached lab coat, those kind and often confused eyes the colour of cocoa, captivated him, and in a dangerous, and wonderful way, filled him with curiosity more than even the lights above the Arby’s.

    He breathed deeply in and out of his nose and glanced at the stars through the tediously clean window and the tail of his hair played with his neck where it was longest and out of control, and he set his wrists on his knees and heard Carlos’s breath quicken. Should he warn him to watch the road?

    He was nearly certain, he thought with the pressure of his art rising and falling like the tides of the Atlantic that Carlos was _not_ , and was rather, watching him.

    The Atlantic. A massive expanse of frothing whitecaps and gulls. Had Pamela Winchell not attempted to convince the whole town, affectively, that the ocean was a product of their fanciful imagination and a compound slipped discretely into the water supply?

    He ignored a seething sensation over his ribs and back, spreading to his fingertips now, a sharp and manic warning over every patch of his skin because his heart was no longer rushing steadily like the tide, now it thrummed like bowstring, excitement radiating through him.

    He gripped the side of the armrests in anticipation because he could see it quite clearly now, the racing waves and warm sun rippling, reflecting over the water. He’d seen the ocean before at one point. He must’ve.

    _It isn’t real_

A voice demanded sharply in the back of his head. He disregarded it completely. When had he ever left Night Vale? When he was a kid? What was Night Vale _like_ when he was a kid? He felt as though his head would burst and his teeth had adopted a vibrating sensation.

    He didn’t remember Night Vale as a kid. He attempted to breathe through harassed lungs and as the anatomical gears of his chest seemed to expand beyond capacity- he closed his eyes. And then opened a different sort of eye in his head.

    And he saw.

* * *

 [LO1]


	3. Strike

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's right. i actually. updated. The story! Amazing, as I never think to finish anything I start. Things are heating up in Night Vale, and this is a creepy one. Hope you like it, kiddos! Comment for any reasons- I know this doesn't follow later episodes, but, hey, creative license. Whatevs.

The Night was black as ink, and it closed in all around Cecil as he ran, legs burning, hair half-frozen whipping his exposed face in the icy night air. A desert may showcase vacation brochure-worthy temperatures in the day, but at night, it was the ninth circle of hell, and contrary to belief, that was deathly cold.

    His breath tore from him in ragged gasps of steam, and every time his mouth closed around a hungry breath, his lungs stung with the need of another.

    It was behind him. Directly behind him. To turn and glance was suicide. Claws clacked maniacally in his ears, which were red and numb, running so fast that his hair didn’t cover them, but rather was pressed against each side of his head.

    A sharp scrape reached him as a talon, sharp as a razor nicked his cheek.

    _This is a dream_

A voice demanded inside his head. Come to think of it, was it his? He recognized his skin burning like a flame, but it was a welcome respite to the atmosphere around him.

    _Then why does it hurt?_

    Cecil challenged boldly.

    Whatever was behind him reached out, roared, and caught him in its hooked, cracked nails.

…

    “Night Vale’s renowned, and yet mysteriously unnoticed, hooded figures made a public announcement today. They have said, through the mouth of Old Woman Josie, who we can only assume received the information from her guardian angels, ‘We will claim one, as is our right. As is our right to claim one, and only one, we will claim him.’ Listeners, this is only my opinion, as merely a novice at writing, but I think that this message was redundant and cryptic, and poorly thought out. Or dear... Maybe I’ve missed something…”

…

    Cecil was sitting at his desk, a matte black simple affair with cords trailing along every inch available.

    The inches that were not covered by that, were adorned with a small pot of Violet pencils, dusky grey graphite, and jet black pens, a stack of notebooks and reports, and his scarf and coat, draped haphazardly across the left side of the surface, grey and black wool, light for the days, but still warm for the nights. Everything had its purpose.

    The weather blared inside his headphones, which were currently hung over the box’s doorknob, but the music could be heard quiet and hushed, even though its source was removed from his head.

    His hand crept to his coat’s right pocket, where his phone was kept. Three missed calls. Hardly a massive statement of worry- but enough. He remembered all too vividly stumbling out of the car he’d politely asked Carlos to stop, and empting his stomach’s content onto the road.

    He gave a shudder. That was _not_ something he’d wished to remember, for which element was worse? The nauseated sensation accompanying the remainder of the night, or the fact that it was spent in his flat after Carlos had dropped him at home?

    Or maybe, just maybe, the fact that he’d felt something just before-

    _Do not-_

A bark began to sound.

_Message received._

    His subconscious seemed to drawl. That missive was dryer than sand, and yet- A shiver clawed along Cecil’s spine for a reason he didn’t remember and his hand, with a mind of its own, reached for a mysterious cut on his face that had appeared the night before.

    Do not question Night Vale.

…

    For the remainder of the workday, things were mysteriously tranquil. Every intern was accounted for, every story only minimally thought provoking- by Night Vale standards. Sliding his coat over his shoulders, he followed the last of the employees out through the station’s durable storm door.

    Waving a farewell as they reached their cars, he drew the nondescript metal key from the pocket of his narrow legged, business casual pants, and drew it to the lock- the cat. He’d forgotten to feed it.

    Sighing, but with no real contempt at the chore, he stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind him, slowly tracking his way with a left down the corridor, and right to the men’s room.

    The cat hadn’t changed its state of levitation in the timeframe it had been unseen, but continued to hover, currently discontented, next to the sink.

    Drawing a bucket of low-calorie cat chow from the shelf near the door, he ladled the unremarkable brown kibbles into a steel dish and placed it gently on the counter, fingers playing in the ginger next ruff of the rumbling beast next to him, gently massaging its neck as it ate.

    He straightened his collar in the mirror, shrugged his coat higher onto his shoulders, and brushed it gently- it was a lovely coat, not long or short, rolled to his elbows in a nonchalant fashion, not a single crease or imperfection recognizable. But it looked wrong. So wrong. It was his, but it wasn’t, it wasn’t his style, it was neat and insufferable, fake. His throat seized as he swallowed agitatedly. Turning fast to leave, his hand inches from the handle of the door, heart in his throat, every fiber of him terse with anxiety-.

    And the lights flickered. He stopped- everything stopped, his arm, his breath, his heart- everything but the flickering lights and the cat’s widening eyes. His flesh felt as though it was being pricked with sewing needles everywhere, like a malicious form of chills.

   Slowly, he glanced at his forearms as they throbbed with a passion. Every tattoo wreathed with intensity and spite. He felt his hands shake, but his head refused to be as frightened as they were. Slowly he back tracked to the sink, hand gripping the ceramic basin. He looked into the mirror, and gasped for air.

    His face was clear as day, but cloaked in a shadow that he couldn’t shake. His blonde strands of hair were soaked through with set, his nails were long and black like hooks, inky designs rippling across his form, wrapping around his throat, filling his eyes so that the intelligent mixture of grey and violet was being forced into nonexistence, replaced with shimmering black.

    His breath was a guttural shutter, and the lights went off completely. Snaking black coils cut into his wrists and neck, forcing open his mouth, forcing fangs to grow into his gums.

    _We will claim one, as is our right. As is our right to claim one, and only one, we will claim **him**_

        A blast of light filled every corner of the room and the cat yowled angrily. The curved tentacles recoiled in shock and withdrew from Cecil, who half-collapsed, coughing salty scarlet into the sink.

    A roar filled his ears, and he was fairly certain it was too loud to merely be the rushing blood in his veins.

    He fell backwards, eyes screwed shut with vehemence.

    His head hit tree bark, and looking up, he saw snow. 


End file.
